{"id":40738,"date":"2021-10-04T16:20:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T23:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=40738"},"modified":"2021-10-04T16:20:21","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T23:20:21","slug":"arizona-activists-battle-to-be-heard-redistricting-hearings-ignore-states-diversity-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=40738","title":{"rendered":"ARIZONA ACTIVISTS BATTLE TO BE HEARD \u2014 REDISTRICTING HEARINGS IGNORE STATE\u2019S DIVERSITY"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by\u00a0Mark Hedin<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Sep 29, 2021<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Voting Rights<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Clockwise from top left: Jennifer Chau, AZ AANHPI for Equity, Jaynie Parrish, Navajo County Democrats, Andrea Varela, One Arizona Coalition\/Rural Arizona Engagement, Sandy Ochoa, Mi Familia Vota, Victoria Grijalva Ochoa, Redistricting Program Manager, One Arizona, Reginald Bolding, Co-Executive Director, Arizona Coalition for Change and candidate for AZ State Secretary<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Also available in\u00a0Spanish<\/a>,\u00a0Chinese<\/a>, and\u00a0Korean<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By Mark Hedin, ETHNIC MEDIA SERVICES<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most recent data on Arizona\u2019s population, from the 2020 Census, shows that the state is continuing to grow and diversify.<\/p>\n

But through the redistricting process that follows that new census data, Arizona is failing in its duty to ensure equal political representation for all its voters.<\/p>\n

In a Sept. 22 briefing hosted by Ethnic Media Services, activists working to see Arizona\u2019s growing diversity reflected in the state\u2019s political power structure described the challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen a lack of investment from the beginning,\u201d said Reginald Bolding, minority leader in the state\u2019s house of representatives representing District 27, starting from last year\u2019s effort to get a complete, accurate count in the 2020 Census.<\/p>\n

Redistricting is overseen by the state\u2019s\u00a0Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC)<\/a>,\u00a0created pursuant to state Proposition 106 in 2000, intended to remove political partisanship.<\/p>\n

After a slow start due to the pandemic\u2019s impact on census work, the IRC\u2019s preliminary maps are due Oct. 27, to be enacted Dec. 22.<\/p>\n

Those maps will be used next year in state races for the U.S. Senate, the state\u2019s nine seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, a new governor and secretary of state, 30 state senators and 60 state representatives.<\/p>\n

The IRC is charged with holding public events to provide community input. But so far, noted Victoria Ochoa, redistricting manager for\u00a0One Arizona<\/a>, a coalition of advocacy groups, \u201cWe are very clearly seeing that the commission is not prioritizing communities of color.\u201d<\/p>\n

Too often, the IRC has confined its outreach to predominantly white neighborhoods, she said, with insufficient room and no translation services.<\/p>\n

Once its draft maps are ready later in October, the IRC will host a third round of public meetings to present them.<\/p>\n

In what she took to be a hopeful sign following the media briefing, Ochoa said, the IRC is seeking suggestions on where it should hold those meetings, via\u00a0its website\u2019s \u201ccontact us\u201d function (https:\/\/irc.az.gov\/node\/49)<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0its newsletter<\/a>\u00a0(https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/AZIRCNL<\/a>).<\/p>\n

And at its weekly planning meeting in late September, she said, the commission discussed adding \u201ctele town halls\u201d to allow people without Internet connections to participate.<\/p>\n

Of particular concerns, Ochoa said, is the fast-growing West Valley in Maricopa County, and watching out for efforts to \u201cpack\u201d its Latino population together to limit the number of state legislators it can elect.<\/p>\n

\u201cFilling gaps in the IRC should not be the role of community groups,\u201d Bolding said. He is also co-director of the\u00a0Arizona Coalition for Change<\/a>\u00a0and a candidate for secretary of state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the IRC may seem like a nebulous topic and subject, this will have a profound impact over the next 10 years and can actually provide an opportunity for our communities to make sure that we truly have a seat at the table in state and federal government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRedistricting is the next fight in the battle to protect our democracy,\u201d said Sandy Ochoa, Tucson coordinator for\u00a0Mi Familia Vota<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The same anti-democratic forces trying to hold onto power by pushing voter suppression bills will also attempt to manipulate the maps in their favor during redistricting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve already said they plan to use the power they hold at the state level to secure a decade of conservative power,\u201d she added, \u201copenly telling people their game plan: Reduce the number of competitive seats nationwide. Limit progressive urban centers and shrink the congressional battlefield where Democratic candidates can compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Redistricting, said Jennifer Chau, executive director of Arizona\u00a0AANHPI<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders for Equity \u2014 \u201cgives the opportunity to elect people who represent our community and share our values.\u201d<\/p>\n

She described how a Chinatown community had been \u201ccracked\u201d among four districts. \u201cWhen a natural disaster occurred,\u201d she said, \u201cnone of those four districts wanted to provide funding for whatever they needed, so they were bickering about who should be paying for that, since there are four districts in that Chinatown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chau also described going to a hearing in Tucson that was jam packed with about 200 people. \u201cWe were the only Asian people there. I\u2019m trying to figure out what efforts the IRC made to reach out to our community, let alone other communities of color, and how these 95% of white communities knew that this meeting was happening but we did not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Echoing previous speakers, Jaynie Parrish, of Navajo County Democrats, concurred about the IRC\u2019s lack of outreach, and its particular impact where attending a meeting can require hours of driving.<\/p>\n

Volunteers, she said, \u201chad to do the work of educating ourselves and the people in our communities and come up with materials because there was just nothing there.\u201d<\/p>\n

She described how meetings they\u2019d promoted for weeks were abruptly canceled and how, when she did get to one, \u201cthe security was intimidating. Talk about voter suppression! We had our elders being wanded and patted down by young white kids that said they were hired by the IRC. This is right in the middle of the Navajo nation. They were not reading the area, they were not reading the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrea Varela, of the\u00a0One Arizona Coalition<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Rural Arizona Engagement<\/a>\u00a0(RAZE), was born and raised in rural Casa Grande, between Phoenix and Tucson.<\/p>\n

She grew up noticing disparities in resources and representation between rural and urban areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis redistricting cycle is our chance to shape the future,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe in building community power and this can only be done by targeting underrepresented communities and communities of color and meeting them where they are at to face the issues that affect us all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Mark Hedin\u00a0|\u00a0Sep 29, 2021\u00a0|\u00a0Voting Rights Clockwise...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40739,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40738\/revisions\/40739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}